← All posts

How to Run a Fair Raffle (That Nobody Can Call Rigged)

2026-06-10

Short answer: put every entry on its own line, draw the winners with a crypto-random picker, and do it live on screen so everyone sees it happen. ToolKoala's Raffle / Random Name Picker shuffles your list with the same cryptographic randomness used for security and pulls the winners — no server, no weighting, nothing that could be quietly rigged.

"Fair" isn't enough — it has to look fair

The hard part of a company lucky draw or a social-media giveaway isn't randomness. It's trust. If you pick a winner privately and just announce a name, someone will quietly wonder if it was a friend of the organizer. Fairness you can't see isn't worth much.

So two things matter:

  1. The draw is genuinely random (not "I'll just pick someone").
  2. People can watch it happen and see they had an equal shot.

How to do it

  1. Gather entries — names, ticket numbers, emails, Instagram handles. One per line.
  2. Open the Raffle picker and paste them in. It shows the entry count so you can confirm nothing's missing.
  3. Set how many winners to draw. Leave "allow repeats" off so one person can't win twice.
  4. Share your screen (or project it) and hit Draw winners live. Copy the result and post it.

Because the shuffle uses crypto.getRandomValues and runs entirely in your browser, there's no server that could log entries or tip the scales — and you can re-run it on the spot if anyone wants to see it again.

Things that quietly make a raffle unfair

  • Spreadsheet "sort by random" then pick the top: fine, but people can't see it and assume you re-sorted until you liked it.
  • Picking from a hat with folded papers: feels fair, but thick paper, position, and a peek all bias it.
  • "Random" tools that need you to log in: now entrants' data sits on someone's server for a prize draw. Overkill, and a privacy liability.

For online giveaways specifically

  • Decide the rule before you draw ("first valid entry wins" / "must be following"), so you're not filtering after the fact.
  • Export the entrant list, paste it in, draw on a livestream or screen recording.
  • Draw a couple of backup winners too, in case the first doesn't claim.

FAQ

How do I run a giveaway that people will trust? Draw the winner live on screen with a random name picker so everyone watches it happen, and use a tool that's genuinely random rather than picking yourself.

Is an online raffle picker actually random? A good one is. ToolKoala's shuffles entries with crypto.getRandomValues — cryptographic randomness — so the draw can't be predicted or nudged, and there's no server involved.

Can I draw more than one winner? Yes — set the number of winners. By default each entry can only win once; there's a toggle if you want to allow repeat wins.

Do I need to upload my entrant list anywhere? No. Paste it into the page and it stays in your browser — nothing is uploaded or logged, which matters when entries include people's names and emails.

— Milo 🐨